Congressional Hearings Planned on Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights

John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, plans to hold hearings that will investigate whether the Office for Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Education has shirked its responsibilities in pursuing desegregation efforts in higher education. Leaders at black colleges and universities in several states have voiced concerns that predominantly white universities have been permitted to establish programs similar to those already in place at historically black universities in those states. If these programs are established, it is probable that they will have the effect of drawing white students away from the programs at the predominantly black universities and therefore increase racial segregation in higher education.

Copyright © 2007. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.